Catching up with Avatar producer Jon Landau these days is almost as difficult as mounting a Leonopteryx. Blindfolded. He’s an extremely busy man in working to bring Avatar to home video and add new footage for a theatrical re-release, keep Fantastic Voyage moving forward and, of course, early work on Avatar 2.
Our own Jason Krahn was fortunate enough yesterday evening to catch up with Jon and discuss the arrival of Avatar on Blu-ray and other topics while the producer made his way home through a maze of California traffic. There’s no rest for the weary, but Jon is loving every minute of his amazing filmmaking adventure alongside legendary James Cameron.
I wanted to start by saying I’m a huge Avatar and Titanic fan. And it was a pleasure to watch both films where the producer along side a visionary director care more about creating an amazing movie experience rather than just generating box office.
Jon: Well thank you very much. Look you know, I think if you do the former you’ll get to the latter.
Avatar has definitely shown that, as has Titanic.
Jon: Movies are about… you gotta entertain first. You’ve got to gauge people and narrative stories that they become emotionally involved with. And if you can do that, the sky is the limit. Whether it’s a historical drama like Titanic, a science fiction movie like Avatar or a comedy… like Home Alone.
For sure. People have just really latched onto the mythology and the background of Avatar and it absolutely become a phenomenon worldwide.
Jon: It definitely has. That’s a testament to the team we had around us. From Paul Frommer who wrote the language to Neville Paige who was the lead designer on the creatures, who didn’t just design creatures but found a way that they lived and existed and why they existed, or TyRuben Ellingson who designed the aircraft and really thought about how they would fly and what would make sense… all of those things.
Avatar’s arrival on Blu-ray tomorrow should be a huge boost for the format. Are you already a Blu-ray adopter and if so what are your favorite movies to watch in hi-def?
Jon: You know I am a Blu-ray adopter. There’s umm… its hard to pick any one film because you watch the format and watch it on an HD screen… the quality… I mean it rivals what you see from theaters around the world. I think that’s what will be exciting for viewers. I don’t know if you know this but what we did on this disc, we chose not to put a single bit of added material on the disc. Not a trailer, not a commercial because we wanted to have every bit of disc space and make it available for the movie. And Jim actually went into modern film and video color timing on the feature film and he spent a week there with our color timer. Not looking at a projection screen but looking at consumer product… LCDs and plasma screens and the light to color time the movie, so when it comes out it really represents how he wants it to look.
To see what people are actually going to be seeing in their homes.
Jon: That’s right! But if we do that in a theater… when we color time a movie, we check the print in a theater or the digital master in a theater. This way Jim was checking what would be in people’s homes, but doing it in a color timing room.
That’s awesome. There has been some backlash about giving a Blu-ray with no features to start with. Is there any reason why you chose to do that and not just wait until you just make the full comprehensive 4-disc set available right away?
Jon: Two reasons. One, the vast majority of the public is wanting it now. The vast majority of the public only watches the movie. Let’s not kid ourselves alright? So we’re not hiding from them… if somebody says I like Blu-rays with the special edition, then wait for the special edition. But if you want to experience the movie and the analogy I like to make is… you go to a concert but you then go home and listen to the CD of the band over and over again. The Blu-ray is to the theaters what the CD is to the concert. You can listen to it at home and have the high quality.
Number two. We could not put together in this window of time, the quality of added value material that we want. We’ve had Weta Digital working for several months now and it will take them all the way through the summer to finish scenes and shots that weren’t in the movie that we want to make available to the fans. So we could not have done these added value now and didn’t feel we could wait given the demand people had to see it now. So we figured by being upfront… I don’t think people can criticize that.
Well I personally think its great and I will be buying both of them.
Jon: Well thank you (laughs)
I can’t wait until November for the special edition. As a film Avatar pushed the boundaries of motion capture and 3D, can we expect the same types of innovations when you do complete the bonus features and user interaction from the special edition?
Jon: You know we’re exploring that now. We don’t want to go beyond and make it a cumbersome process for the user. When you’re making a movie you’re using technology the burden is on you to figure out the technology. We don’t want to put the burden on the consumer. We’re going to try and do the best job utilizing what is out there. We’ll have branching, we’ll have some interactive stuff but we want to keep it to what they’re familiar with.
James Cameron recently told the L.A. Times that Avatar 2 will explore the oceans of Pandora which should be amazing visually. Is there anything specific that you hope to see realized in the sequel when it does come around?
Jon: What I hope to see realized is we can deliver on the same strong character journey that the first movie had, whether is takes place in the oceans of Pandora or the floating mountains of Pandora. Ultimately what makes the movie work is the relationships between Jake and Neytiri and others.
Stepping away from Avatar, do you have any updates to share on the current status of Fantastic Voyage? Last we heard Paul Greengrass was circling the director’s chair.
Jon: Paul is still circling; we had a very good conversation with him today. I think it’s important before you put on the wedding ring (laughs)… marriage on a film that you know exactly… that everybody’s on the exact same page. That’s why we’re having a very exciting time going through that process now with Paul.
Excellent. When can we expect Titanic on Blu-ray?
Jon: Well you know, I think our focus on Titanic in the short term is to convert it to 3D. We think that trying to do conversion as a technical process in the last seven weeks of production is not the way to do it, you can’t end up with creatively good results. Conversion is an artistic process. We plan on taking the next year to eighteen months and working that out, and hopefully being able to present a 3D version to people of Titanic… that’s a really great promising test.
Well movie goers definitely appreciate that time and effort. We learned that from the new Clash of the Titans which definitely came across as a tacked on gimmick.
Jon: No comment (laughs)
Last question before I let you go. Which comes first, Avatar 2 or Battle Angel?
Jon: I think in a dream scenario Avatar 2 would come first. Having said that it will come down to the script. Jim has made two sequels in his career, both times those sequels have I think been better then the first movie… Aliens and Terminator 2. And it all comes down to script, so if a script comes into shape quickly on Avatar 2 then that would be next. If it doesn’t we’ll look to something else… I’m not sure what that something else would be, but we have a couple things in mind.
The public and myself definitely have lot’s of confidence in James Cameron, and he has tons of fans out there with the film you’ve created and with what you’ll likely create in the future.
Jon: We’re lucky… the fans are what it’s all about for us. Jim makes a movie; he makes it for the fans and for the audience. That’s what is most important to us and that’s why we enjoy movies and what we do. I tell people when I go to a movie, one of our movies… while everyone else is watching the screen I’m watching the people…because that’s what it’s about for me.
Everybody that has seen Avatar is still talking about it and that’s why the DVD and Blu-ray are coming out tomorrow.
Jon: Exactly. Thank you for your time.
Special thanks to Jon Landau for his time and going above and beyond to talk to us, Jason Krahn for conducting the interview, and the fine folks at Fox.
Click here to grab Avatar on Blu-ray from Amazon.com for under $20, available as of today, April 22 aka Earth Day.
